


After

by andalee (mwrites)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 08:35:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2341946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mwrites/pseuds/andalee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta doesn't care that they're an oddity, and Katniss kept the pin for a long time as a reminder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Them

Peeta doesn’t care that they’re an oddity. They both survived the same Games once, twice. They are both alive, despite the odds definitely NOT being in their favor. Their children are healthy, and as happy as they can be. As the years go by, he and Katniss grow closer, talking less, doing more. They move in tandem, as they used to fight together. They are a team. They are united against all odds, for the betterment of the world. They will never give up, Peeta knows. And that in of itself is an oddity.

* * * * * 

Katniss kept the pin for a long time as a reminder. She didn’t need it. Her nightmares were reminder enough. Some small part of her felt it important enough to not be discarded easily. So it stayed on a top shelf in the closet, out of sight, but never far from Katniss’s mind. It reminded her of the terror of her youth, but also of the bravery of those she knew then. Yes, Katniss sometimes needed that reminder to get through the day. Her children and Peeta were often not enough to convince her to keep living life, to not kill herself to end the nightmares. The pin was enough. How could she callously choose to die over something as trivial as nightmares when her friends had died for something much more noble? Katniss would remember, and live on, for them.


	2. Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We watch every year. We see you die. We see you win.

We watch every year. We see you die. We see you win. We bet and cheer on our favorites. It's called the Hunger Games. It is a game to us.

Many of us thought it wasn't real, that at the end, all of the competitors went home to their families.

We didn't know how much it hurt you.

We didn't know.

We promise.

You don't believe us. You never do, just like we never believed you when you tried to talk.

It is this disbelief that is our enemy - everyone's enemy. We cannot get along because we blame each other instead of working together.

We're sorry.

It's too late now, but we are.

Sorry for the pain. Sorry for our ignorance. Sorry that we didn't care. Sorry that we never spared you a thought in the hiatus. Sorry that we thought you stupid and ignorant.

We see now that we were wrong.

You are smart. You are brave. You are strong. You are creative.

We have lost these things, or twisted them.

The pressure we put on you has turned you into diamonds. We are just fat lumps of coal.

Worthless, like we thought you were.

When we see our own children in the Games, we understand. We are glued to our seats, horrified. We do not want to watch now. It is too real, too close, like it was for you all those years.

But we cannot look away, as you could not when it was yours.

You cheer on the deaths of our children. Not all of you, but enough.

You breed the hatred that put us here. You blame us all for the sins of a few. We understand. We did the same, for generations, without knowing.

You do not understand, as we did not, that you are dooming yourselves to repeat the past, unless amends can be made.

We must forge a treaty. Accept each other. Rebuild our broken country and begin anew.

It is not possible while the Games rage on.

In the quiet of after, we are all horrified, you and us alike.

We all cry, or stand stoic.

We are all in shock.

How could we have done this to ourselves? We all wonder it. Some are loathe to admit it. But every one of us is complicit. We have all contributed to the fall. To the horror. And now we must forgive, forget, move on.

We all know that is easier said than done.

When we are old, and you are old, and most everyone now alive does not remember Before, we tell them. We tell them the whole ugly story.

They weep. They do not understand the evil that was in our hearts. The evil of indifference.

You and we are glad. That means that we, united at last, have taught our children and grandchildren what we were not.

Indifference, not our differences, is the greatest enemy of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference." ― Elie Wiesel


End file.
